jmpresidente
Milpostista
Verificad@ con 2FA
He leido este articulo sobre un modelo "espacial" de Rolex no muy conocido, ¿teneis mas información sobre él?
The Mystery of The Rolex SPACE-DWELLER
Scott Carpenter's career may solve the mystery surounding a very rare Rolex named the SPACE-DWELLER. In Rolex lore there is a story that says the Mercury astronauts toured Japan and the Japanese loved the Astronauts. Rolex began realizing the significance of having a space model watch in the heated space-race and ultimately realized the significance of the moon watch conquest.
I asked Scott Carpenter if he ever toured Japan with or without the Mercury astronauts and he said no. Then I spoke with his daughter Kris and shared this story with her. Kris said that JFK appointed John Glenn as an American Goodwill Ambassador to Japan and that John Glenn toured Japan in May 1963.
I asked James Dowling what his source was for the SPACE-DWELLER (pictured above and below) watch story and he mentioned it was told to him by a former Rolex executive for the far east.
I am going to go our on a limb, but I think I figured out the mystery. I will point out that this is pure conjecture on my behalf, but it makes sense to me. I think the long-term significance of the space-race and moon watch conquest caught all of the watchmakers in the world off guard–including Rolex.
I think once Rolex started to get it in 1963, it was getting late in the game and Omega may have already been chosen by NASA to be the official space watch.
There are two stories in long circulation about how Omega was chosen over all the other brands. Apparently in 1962 NASA began to consider what watch would best suit the astronauts in the upcoming Gemini and Apollo space missions.
The first story says that NASA went to a downtown Houston, Texas jewelry store named Corrigan's and bought 5 of the top watches to test and Omega was chosen because its Speedmaster tested better than any of the other brands in a contest which included the Rolex Daytona or Chronograph as well as a Longines watch.
The second story says that NASA noticed many of the astronauts and test pilots wore Rolex GMT's so NASA contacted Rolex and tried to order 50 Rolex GMT Master wristwatches, but the Rolex employee told them they could not fulfill the order because they only had 8 GMT's in stock. As the story goes, once the higher ups at Rolex found out about this, they severely reprimanded the employee.
I don't know if either of these stories is true, but I intend to find out in the future.
The Mystery of The Rolex SPACE-DWELLER
I asked James Dowling what his source was for the SPACE-DWELLER (pictured above and below) watch story and he mentioned it was told to him by a former Rolex executive for the far east.
I am going to go our on a limb, but I think I figured out the mystery. I will point out that this is pure conjecture on my behalf, but it makes sense to me. I think the long-term significance of the space-race and moon watch conquest caught all of the watchmakers in the world off guard–including Rolex.
I think once Rolex started to get it in 1963, it was getting late in the game and Omega may have already been chosen by NASA to be the official space watch.
There are two stories in long circulation about how Omega was chosen over all the other brands. Apparently in 1962 NASA began to consider what watch would best suit the astronauts in the upcoming Gemini and Apollo space missions.
The first story says that NASA went to a downtown Houston, Texas jewelry store named Corrigan's and bought 5 of the top watches to test and Omega was chosen because its Speedmaster tested better than any of the other brands in a contest which included the Rolex Daytona or Chronograph as well as a Longines watch.
The second story says that NASA noticed many of the astronauts and test pilots wore Rolex GMT's so NASA contacted Rolex and tried to order 50 Rolex GMT Master wristwatches, but the Rolex employee told them they could not fulfill the order because they only had 8 GMT's in stock. As the story goes, once the higher ups at Rolex found out about this, they severely reprimanded the employee.
I don't know if either of these stories is true, but I intend to find out in the future.
